This is dedicated to all those people,
those who are blatantly themselves. ….…[[[You know the ones I mean.]
Some, when seedlings, had family or teachers
who jabbed a finger yelling: You! You! You!
accusing them of being quintessentially themselves . . . as though that was wrong.
They are the YOUs who come from multi-colored places
with varied dreams and
hearts woven of wonderlush
They are the womanly or manly,
childlike and wise.
They run from the gray streets to the green forest.
They take to long-lost roads and never-found pathways
with their song in a backpack and
a brown-bag lunch of no-baloney sandwiches.
When they elder they arrive back at the beginning
“The moon does not fight. It attacks no one. It does not worry. It does not try to crush others. It keeps to its course, but by its very nature, it gently influences. What other body could pull an entire ocean from shore to shore? The moon is faithful to its nature and its power is never diminished.” Everyday Tao: Living with Balance and Harmony, Ming-Dao Deng
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT
Write a poem about being being true to ourselves, true to our inherent nature. If you feel comfortable, leave your work or a link to it in the comments section. All poems shared on theme will be published in next Tuesday’s poetry collection. You have until Monday night, 8:30 p.m. PST to respond.
A wonderful collection today that illustrates just how complex relationships are, as complex as the human beings who compose them. These are the responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, Hero of the Practicalities, November 22, 2017. Welcome and thanks to newcomer, Denise Aileen DeVries. Thanks also to stalwart participants: bogpan, Colin Blundel, Sonja Benskin Mesher and Paul Brookes.
Anyone who would like to join in tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt is welcome to do so no matter the status of career: beginning, emerging or pro. All work shared on theme will be published in the next collection on the following Tuesday. Meanwhile, enjoy these …
Delivery
The dark and fire
of the linotype and the roar
of the press were safe for her,
more than the house, plastic-
covered from lampshades to floors.
At home, nothing was ever finished,
mute dishes dirtied themselves,
yolks broke in the skillet,
shirts weighted the end
of the ironing board.
She had nothing to prove
to men who thought they owned
the secrets of melted lead.
She knew the language of em and en;
she could read upside-down.
At home, my father’s mood
could tip the day,
luminous floors becoming
ominous, two silent children
eating her mistakes.
Work meant
achievement, putting words
to lead, to ink, to bed.
Newspapers of two small towns
passed through her hands
from formation
in cooled lead slugs
to inky rollers, to birth
off the end of the press,
delivery.
Mind-reading in marriage is somewhat unpredictable. The other day, we were sitting in front of the TV, and I wanted my husband to get me some dessert. It took me at least 2 minutes of focused thought before he said, “shall we have some ice cream?” Yet, a few days later, while he was three miles away at the grocery store, I thought, “I wish I had some chocolate,” and when he came home, he handed me a bar of milk chocolate. Mind-reading seems to work best with food, but even after 20 years, it’s not infallible. I would have preferred dark chocolate.
Because we each grew up speaking a different language, mind-reading comes in handy when our vocabulary fails us. It’s quite normal for our dinner conversation to go something like this: “can you pass the…” “donde está el…” “next time we go to the tienda, hay que comprar…”
This is not to say that we think alike. In fact, the list of things on which we disagree is much longer than those on which we agree. This may be confusing for people who think that in marriage “two become one.” I’ve often been horrified by people’s assumptions that one of us can express the opinion of both. Especially if that opinion isn’t mine!
This is Denise’s first time responding to Wednesday Writing Prompt. (Welcome!) This is what she tells us, “I was the girl who squeezed through the barbed-wire fence behind the sheep pen and disappeared for hours all alone looking for cactus flowers and mariposas. The dry side of the dam is where I live now,
past all that water under the bridge, the history and humidity, reflections and memories all under water.”
that moment
when I said – this symphony
is so full of beautiful tunes
which just go on and on
you smiled such a caressingly
honest smile that I sensed
the light of your Being
touching mine (mine yours)
I feel sorry for Ray
tells me his fat
girlfriend just sits
around house,
no housework.
He prepares all meals.
She just sits
reading Mills and Boon.
drinks and sleeps
Never together when out.
She with her friends, he with his.
He goes out,
returns she’s brandishing a knife,
interrogates him
where he’s been.
He is a designer
witty with it.
Manager at my workplace
he sends me a picture
of an American Indian
with palm up
and five statements on how
we should get together.
How did he know
the guardian angel who appears
bottom of my bed
is a North American Indian?
Two
I ask
“Why haven’t you moved out?”
He says
“When my last marriage broke up
my wife got house and everything
and my girlfriend won’t move out.”
He makes sense.
I want a boyfriend with either
motorbike or a landrover.
He’s just sold his bike.
Landrover is soft topped.
Takes me and Ben out walking
to Dark Peak.
We enjoy pictures rather than
words.
He makes meals for the family.
My friends said if my last husband
turns up Ray
would not hesitate to lay him out.
We spend evenings planning places
things we can do, together.
He smokes
socially when he drinks, like me.
Suddenly,
Christmas he moves in.
On way out to a Parents evening
at Ben’s school I tell him
“We’ll talk when I return.”
On return I find all drink gone
him crashed out drunk in my bed.
In morning he says
“Please forgive me.”
Over the next month we go out
hold hands, and are gentle
down by the bridge while Ben plays
ahead with our dog.
Three
Over next month he fills my
wardrobes with his clothes
my shelves with his CD’s.
Then I notice
him going to pub straight after
work returns home crashes
out to sleep.
He works drinks sleeps.
Comes from work after pub
says he’s tired,
sleeps rest of night.
I wait for him downstairs.
I sit alone in house on an evening
or when he is in
he gawps at TV in bedroom.
He does not let me to go
out with my friends.
We go out again after I have words.
Two weeks later he is back
drunk and sleeping again.
On few occasions we go out
he leaves me on my own
he spends evening talking
to a biker or someone at bar.
I talk to his fat girlfriend Sophie.
She’d been holding a knife
because she was cutting veg
as she always did
preparing meals for him while he
went out and got drunk.
He catches me talking to her
says
“Don’t believe her, she’s a liar. She’ll say
anything to get me back with her.”
Tells me all the girls at work
are after him.
I talk to them.
They wouldn’t touch him.
He promises me he’ll not go drinking
starts excuses when I smell it on
his breath.
I tell him so.
I say
“I’ll go to a counselling session with you.”
He’s having none of it.
His tears when I phone him at local
pub and tell him
“Your stuffs in the driveway.”
Down on his knees he is,
tears and moans, begging me to
reconsider.
He says
“Your right in everything you say.
I’m at fault and I’ll change.”
He is really suffering.
I nearly break
but people never change.
I meet him a month or two later while out with my mates.
He comes in pub.
Sends one of his mates over to me
“Ray wants a private word”
I say
“Whatever Ray has to say he can say while my mates are present.”
Anyway he comes over.
I ask
“How’s Sophie?”
he tells me
“Eff off!”
I feel nothing.
Mark is the man for me,
but he is married
and she is kind.
I have known the family for ten years now.
It is only recently I admit to myself I love Mark.
I would not hurt their kids .
I have seen them settle down
round meal table of an evening.
I come home, collapse on sofa
and cry for I know we would be good together.
I want to settle down.
For a time with Ray I forget about Mark.
Ray never knew about him.
I see Mark less.
I will not move from this cul de sac
because I feel safe with Mark down the road
and the fabulous view of the moors.
Perhaps because I love Mark I find it difficult
to love anyone else.
Steve says his wife often
comes into their bedroom
and says “Where’s Steve?”
And he says to her.
“I’m here love. We’ve
been married forty years.”
And she says,
“Of course you are. We have.”
And she laughs.
“How did we first
get together?”
At the end of the next day,
when they’ve been out
to the shops and visiting
old friends she’ll say,
“What have we done today,
Steve?” And she remembers
none of it.
At mealtimes she picks
up her knife and fork
and holds them very close
to her glazed eyes.
She shows him her
fingers, and he sees
they are no longer fat
but thin to the bone.
“Come on,love.
They must have dropped off.
I’ll help you look for them.”
He offers.
“In the place you’ve hid
them. I bet. I know
your game, Steve.
I’m wise to you.”
We do not know each other.
The fog is carving the ghostly
silhouettes of houses, people
and hopes.
And like a sound the hand is –
a semitone of the scream
of seagulls “Arriva … Arriva”
Nothing is coming.
Nothing has come.
I am trying to breathe –
in a time beyond.
In the gardens of the cascades
before the dawn and after the rain.
We do not know each other.
You’ve melted in the sun,
a sun in the fog
and you’ve never been here.
The paper remembers some passed
sounds come from the outer
world – Arriva.
What can I tell you?
She loved the guy …
She even loved the
scent of whiskey and cigarettes
She took note of the clues
warning of devises and vices
that she’d never acquired
She didn’t care He was charming
Coupled in delicate balance
A yin and yang of extremes
An odd marriage of differences,
fog being the common denominator ~
though his drink didn’t mix well with her
off-in-the-clouds-somewhere being
The accountant of just-the-facts ma’am
and the writer of improbable dreams She was a trial
The bear who liked to escape to the woods,
nonetheless some comfort, a decent person
A hero of the practicalities
A maker of omelets and fixer of things
A reader, a gardener ~ An Angry Man
Anger . . .
. . . read pain
but you probably knew that ~
a pain that waltzed with Jack Daniels,
lent itself to long diatribes and
Pilsner-inspired pontifications
It skied through the veins
Built road-blocks to his heart ~
and in the end . . .
in the end in the end
the pain did him in …..That lost man
That well-meaning, decent
distant, funny, lost man
Marriage and other relationships can be difficult, beautiful or mixed. Tell us about that. If you feel comfortable, leave your work or a link to it in the comments section. All poems shared on theme will be published in next Tuesday’s poetry collection. You have until Monday night, 8:30 p.m. PST to respond.
In these responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, November 15, gods of our making, you’ll find some moving and discerning views into the way we create false gods, stuggle with and spin the fabric of belief, sometimes to justify the unjustifiable, and the ways in which belief systems learned in youth may come up wanting in the face of common sense and the hard realities of adult life.
Kudos to Mike Stone (new here and welcome), bogpan, Kakali Das Ghosh, Colin Blundell, Ginny Brannon, Renee Espriu, Anthony Carl and Paul Brookes for work that is engaging, honest, well considered and well written.
Anyone who would like to join in tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt is welcome to do so no matter the status of career: beginning, emerging or pro. All work shared on theme will be posted in the next collection on the following Tuesday. Meanwhile, enjoy these …
The Grand Scheme of Things
(Raanana, April 11, 2016)
The dark cloud squats heavily on the horizon
Undecided whether to drift slowly
Over our dusty fields with its fat bladder
Full of drought quenching rains
Or to drift up the coast a ways
To quench the thirst of our enemy’s fields.
O Lord, I know it makes no difference
In the grand scheme of things,
But I can’t help the fact
It would make all the difference in the world
To me.
That I know what my wife is feeling,
That my love will be enough to protect her
From the lovelessness around her,
That my particular being might have some worth
In the eye of the Grand Schemer of Things,
That the sun will climb over the eastern mountains tomorrow,
That the ground on which I walk
Is as solid as any reality,
These are small beliefs I think
That won’t hurt anyone else,
At least I don’t believe so.
But there are grander beliefs
That grow stronger
With every man and woman who believes them,
That only the grandest edifices
Can house them,
These beliefs,
Like who’s a chosen people
And who’s a virgin, an only son, or a true prophet,
Beliefs that hurt those who don’t believe them.
These are the beliefs I don’t believe
Are any good for anything
That’s not a building.
Although there is truth
I will never know it
Or be absolutely sure.
Although the world
And universe above and below
Do in fact exist
I will never perceive or conceive it.
Although all this is true
There is not enough evidence
To make of me a true believer
A skeptic or a cynic
An optimist or pessimist.
According to forensic science
Every criminal leaves a trail
Except for God and His magicians.
All this and less
As we move forward in our time.
The child is taught
When there is no help
God is our help,
When there is no hope
God is our hope,
When there is no redemption
God is our redemption.
These are honeyed words
To hear on sabbath after new years,
They succor us until we need them to be true
And then they desert us
Just like God did long ago
And we cry out from our crosses
With our last breaths like His Son
Why have You forsaken Me?
The truth is it’s our beliefs that crucify us,
Better to die like a lion roaring
Against the jackals of death
Or an eagle falling silently
From the sky
Than like forsaken children
Waiting for redemption.
MIKE STONE Although this is Mike’s first time on Wednesday Writing Prompt, I think many of you know him from other venues. I do believe he has participated in every The BeZine 100TPC event as well. Mike was born in Columbus Ohio, USA, in 1947 and was graduated from Ohio State University with a BA in Psychology. He served in both the US Army and the Israeli Defense Forces. He’s been writing poetry since he was a student at OSU and supports his writing habit by working as a computer networking security consultant. He moved to Israel in 1978 and lives in Raanana. He is married and has three sons and three grandchildren.
(Have the life)
The wings are bending of a dead
wind.
Under the fallen papers with words
blank
not burnt cockroaches are running
back
and forth
making noise…
And the ocean dries up.
The death is whispering in eyes
every single while,
when you’re bent above the oars.
The oars are making after the hits
circles
and they’re expanding.
A twitch and the end.
But the tries are repeated.
It doesn’t matter.
They leave sweat and tears,
pieces of keels,
trails of activity,
grief.
Where are you going in the early afternoon,
When the twilight
Is lying on your shoulders?
(but love is a place sedentary).
Repent –
know-it-all.
I have lifted my eyes to the heavens to pray
trying to renew the faith I once felt;
coming to find at the end of the day
that life as I know it is centered on doubt.
How can God sanction such anger and hate,
the loss of a parent to such a young child;
the illness and pain that never abates…
too many questions left unreconciled.
We thank God for all of the good things that come,
but who takes the blame for the unanswered prayer?
Time intercedes until we’ve become numb—
stuck in this place between hope and despair.
I believe there are angels who wander among us:
in the friend who just senses when you need to talk;
in the kindness of strangers when we are in crisis,
who lift and support us when we cannot walk.
Life lessons learned have hardened this heart;
still God bless the ones who can truly believe.
Blind faith without proof is really an art;
it’s through love and kindness I’ll find my reprieve.
I still ponder the words that we heard in our youth:
to pray, to have faith that our voice will heard;
but have come to acknowledge this as my truth—
my Divinity’s found helping those here on earth.
Swimming through their tears I live
Shedded leaves let out a deep sigh
The fiscous sky leaves a black smile
Howl of funous thunder
Heehaw of rampant lightning
tear apart hearts
A lorn’s cry for mom
A beggar’s bowl beside a temple
A street child’s furious search for a wrapper
A destitute aback a flash flood
Casts the falsehood of legendary Gods
Towards galaxies
Towards constellations
Towards this whole universe.
Editorial Note: I just finished reading Paul’s newest collection, She Needs That Edge, which is scheduled for publication shortly. Look for the alert on Paul’s site or here in Sunday Announcements. It’s another fabulous read by this indefatigable Yorkshire poet. In this collection Paul combines his singular style with acute insight into the human condition. He takes us through five stories, pictures of the great and small ironies of life. We observe the daily routines, rituals and reactions in lives where birds have jam sessions on rooftops, mausoleums live on fridge doors, the memory of a touch stays with the skin; lives where hands are telling and people hunger, give what’s not wanted and take what’s not given. In short, Life with all its pathos and ethos. She Needs that Edge will be well worth your time and pennies.
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